In Focus: Infants and Toddlers
Apr 23, 2013 | Permalink »
Write a Letter Thanking the President for His Historic Early Childhood Investment
Recently, President Obama released his 2014 budget proposal. This budget includes historic investments across several early childhood programs including increased investment in a comprehensive birth-to-five early education continuum built upon child care, home visiting, Head Start, Early Head Start, and preschool - all critical programs for children, especially the most vulnerable children.
With our partners from the Strong Start for Children - Building America's Future campaign, CLASP will be collecting thank you notes from across the country and delivering them to the White House. Please join us in thanking President Obama for making investments in young children a priority!
Mail us your hard copy letters (a drawing or hand print by a child on your letter would be great) to deliver to the White House. We must receive all letters at CLASP by Monday, April 29. Please send your letters and drawings to: Emily Firgens, CLASP, 1200 18th ST NW, Suite 200, Washington DC, 20036. You can also email your letters to efirgens@clasp.org. We are collecting them rather than asking you to send them directly to the White House due to security protocols.
We hope you will join us in thanking President Obama for his early childhood initiative by sending CLASP your letters by May 2!
Thank you, and please contact Emily Firgens at efirgens@clasp.org or 202-906-8031 if you have any questions.
Apr 11, 2013 | Permalink »
The President’s Budget: Historic for Early Childhood
Yesterday, the President released his Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Budget. For young children and the child care and early education community that supports them, the budget comes as a much anticipated follow-up to the President's State of the Union address where he outlined early learning as a priority. This budget includes historic investments across several early childhood programs.
The President's budget includes increased investment in a comprehensive birth-to-five early education continuum including child care, home visiting, Head Start, Early Head Start, and preschool-all critical programs for children, especially the most vulnerable children.
Through companion investments in the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, the President's proposal introduces new details to what the White House is calling its Preschool for All initiative. These investments include:
- Preschool -$75 billion in mandatory funding across 10 years to support state preschool programs. $1.3 billion of the $75 billion would be allocated in FY 2014. Additionally, $750 million in discretionary funding would be available in FY 2014 as development grants to states to create or strengthen their early education systems in preparation for the Preschool for All initiative.
- Home Visiting- $15 billion over 10 years to expand home visiting programs. Home visiting programs provide family support and connect children and their parents to resources during a critical development period for young children.
- Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships- $1.4 billion to support Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships. These will provide increased access to comprehensive, high quality child care for infants and toddlers.
Mar 21, 2013 | Permalink »
Providence’s Early Childhood Initiative Wins Big for Its Focus on Early Language Development
Young children learn language through their environment. During infancy, babies are intensely listening to the sounds and words of the world around them. As toddlers, children begin to form simple sentences and questions and express ideas and opinions. During preschool years, children build a larger vocabulary, using more complex language and complete sentences. It is during these stages of language development that caregivers' support and understanding is essential.
Providence, Rhode Island is working to ensure caregivers understand just how important a young child's early language development is, and how they can best support it, through their new early childhood initiative, Providence Talks. The initiative seeks to increase and improve upon young children's exposure to language and vocabulary, and is based on research that shows that by age 3, children in low-income families hear on average 30 million fewer words than children in middle and upper-income families. This word gap can severely impact school readiness and future language skills.
Providence Talks will provide children under age 5 with small electronic devices that record every conversation and word spoken to them throughout the day. Parents will then receive monthly coaching sessions with social workers on how to boost their child's vocabulary. The devices are able to filter out television and radio, and will also work for English, Spanish, and other languages. In order to prevent them from being damaged, the device will come with special clothing that holds it in place. The program is voluntary, and the city intends to offer it to all low-income families. By 2018, they hope to have 2,850 families participating.
Pitched as part of Bloomberg Philanthropies' Mayors Challenge contest, Provide Talks was recently awarded the contest's $5 million grand prize for its innovation, impact, and potential to be implemented in other cities.
While the program's long-term impact has yet to be seen, Providence Talks is a new and innovative approach to improving young children's language and vocabulary in both the short and long-term. It is one example of a growing recognition of how important adult-child interactions, like those found in high-quality child care and early education, are to improving children's language and literacy skills.